Letters to a Dead Girl
by musicalfreak86
Summary: Some people journal to stay sane. They write down all their innermost concerns and feelings and conflicts. Haymitch Abernathy doesn't journal. But he does write letters.
1. Chapter 1

**Just to mention...this is extremely experimental. I was thinking about everything Haymitch went through in his games, and how he was essentially completely alone afterwards. He went to the Capitol every year for the Games to mentor, the children died, and he went back home completely alone. So in all that lonesomeness and with all the bad memories, how did he stay sane? We could look at him and say that he wasn't sane, but he wasn't completely off his rocker either.  
So I came up with this idea for him to have someone to talk to. Afterall, what better way for Haymitch to stay sane than to write letters to a dead girl? I think it fits him.  
**

**Consider it a character study. =]**

* * *

It's only been a few days since the Games ended. They tell me that I can return to District 12, and that I will be able to live life very similar to how I did before, just better. They tell me that I will always have enough food for myself as well as my family. They tell me that my family can move to the Victors' Village with me, and so I will still be able to live with them. But I know that things will never be the same.

They tell me that I will get to make yearly trips to the Capitol as though it's a good thing. As though this is something I would want. As though it's a treat. But it's not some sort of treat. Sure, it's sugar coated and wrapped in brightly colored wrapping like some sort of sweet. But it's not. Because underneath, it's a corrupt and murderous place.

Does no one realize that their Capitol, the place that they look up to and are willingly ruled by, murders children every year? How can everyone in that place be so blind?

But I'm working myself up, Maysilee, and I've also been told that that is something I must not do. They talked to me on the train ride home Maysilee. They reassured me that I can live normally as I always have, only better, and they told me to stay calm.

How am I supposed to stay calm after what has happened? How am I supposed to stay calm after I have been forced to murder, after I had to watch you die...

This is one of those things they would tell me not to think about.

I must be going insane. Why else would I be writing a letter to a dead girl? You can't read this. You will never read this, because I was too late. I was too late to save you.

I was too late to save you...


	2. Chapter 2

**This one is extremely short, but I'm still trying to get a hang of the character. Haymitch's head is a hard one to get in to!**

* * *

My family is dead.

Just writing those words causes my pen to shake so badly that if someone were to really try to read this they probably wouldn't be able to decipher it.

They killed my family.

There they are again. Those words. How strange it seems to look at those words written down in ink. You can't erase ink...

Here I am, sitting in my house in the Victor's Village. Outside, life is going on almost completely like normal. Workers go back and forth to the mines. Children play outside. In the Capitol, I'm sure they are already preparing for the Victory Tour, and then the next Games.

And I'm sitting inside writing a letter to a dead girl about my dead family.

Life works in strange ways, you know?


	3. Chapter 3

I'm only just starting to process what has happened to me. What the Capitol has done to me. And Maysilee, I don't know if I can bear it.

I drank last night. It burned going down, and I was so sick this morning. So sick. But I forgot. I forgot what happened. I forgot about the Games. I forgot what my family and girlfriend's faces looked like when my name was called. I forgot about going out for the day, and coming home to find my family dead. My girlfriend dead. And I regret to say that I forgot you, too. I didn't have nightmares, and your face was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning.

I went and bought more alcohol this afternoon. I don't even know what I bought. But they told me it's strong. Strong is good. It keeps the nightmares away.

But it doesn't keep your face away. I don't think anything will be able to keep your face away. And I don't know if I would want to forget...

It's strange to be thinking about your more than my family. But when that old familiar guilt creeps back in, I just remind myself that it was you in the arena with me. Not my family. And not my girlfriend.

I'm a terrible human being. Where did that bottle go?

My Victory Tour is coming up. I don't know how I'm supposed to handle this. I know for a fact that they won't let me go drunk.

Maysilee, how am I supposed to do this? They think it's hard to be one of the fallen, to lose your life to these godforsaken Games. But I don't think they once thought of how hard it is to be a Victor. To travel to all the Districts and see the families of the fallen, so many who have died at your own hands.

As much as I wish you had lived, I'm glad you're not having to do this.

Maysilee, how am I supposed to live when all I want to do is give up?


	4. Chapter 4

**Another chapter. =] Thank you to those who reviewed!**

**I don't own the Hunger Games! (I think I forgot to say that in the first chapter.)**

* * *

I am happy.

I am a Victor.

I have my life and I am glad for it.

I show no remorse for killing those other children who are all only about my own age.

I am a winner.

And Maysilee, I am fake. Everything about me is fake. I am a Capitol pawn, and I had no say in it whatsoever.

I find myself more and more turning to alcohol now that the Victory Tour is over. What should it matter? They don't need me anymore.

And then I have to remember that it isn't over. It will never be over. I will be dragged back to the Capitol over and over again. Year after year I will be forced to return to the place I despise so much in my heart. And it will be no different from the first time I went.

The first time, I had to kill children with my own two hands. This time, I will have to kill children by sending them into the Arena. And I know that they will not succeed. How could they possibly succeed with other children who have been trained all their lives for this? When the children here don't even have enough food to fill their bellies?

I am only seventeen, but Maysilee, I feel so old.

In only four month's time, it will be Reaping Day all over again. And this time, instead of standing in the crowd of children, heart beating out of my chest, palms sweating as I wait for my name to be called from the Reaping Ball, I will be sitting on that stage, still feeling the same as if I were in the crowd.

Because either way I will have to kill children.


	5. Chapter 5

**It's been a minute since I've updated, but I sat down yesterday afternoon and wrote about six chapters of this in one sitting! So I have not abandoned this story! =]**  
**Thank you for the reviews!**  
**I do not own Hunger Games.**

* * *

I have known this was coming. Ever since I heard the trumpets declaring me Victor of my Games, I have known this was coming. But Maysilee, all the time in the world could not have prepared me for this.

I thought my Reaping was bad. This was so much worse.

Maysilee, their _faces._

In the years before we were Reaped, I never noticed the expression because I was too relieved that my name had not come out of the Capitol minion's mouth. The year we were Reaped, I didn't see it because I was the one wearing it. But this year, it hit me smack in the face.

They already knew they were dead.

We are on the train now, and I don't know what to do. I am supposed to be the person who gives them strategies. I am supposed to be these kids' saving grace, their well of advice about what to do or not to do in the Arena.

And yet I am too afraid to face them.

Sometimes, Maysilee, I envy _you. _


	6. Chapter 6

I am in Hell Maysilee. I am in Hell on earth.

I am back in the Capitol. It's been one day, and already the memories are flooding back. I remember seeing the stylists and being made attractive. I remember being put into a costime and sent into the middle of the Capitol in a chariot, all the citizens oohing and aahing over the other Districts and ignoring Twelve completely. I remember being coached for the interviews and forced out onto that stage and feeling like a fool. I remember getting into the tube and listening to the Countdown and feeling my heart beat so strongly that it felt like it was going to beat straight out of my chest.

And now I am sending kids my own age into the same fate.

I'm trying, Maysilee. I'm trying so hard. I am telling them everything I know, every detail I remember about the Arena.

But they look at me with empty eyes and I can tell that they know what I've known all along.

They were dead before they were even Reaped.


	7. Chapter 7

They're gone.

They lasted less than a day.

Maysilee, I'm a murderer. All over again, I'm a murderer.

Both of them died in the Bloodbath. I told them to turn and run. The girl listened, but the Careers were too fast. You know how they are, how they have trained their entire lives to kill. She was no match for them. They saw an opportunity to rid themselves of an opponent early on and jumped at the chance.

The boy was stupid. He didn't listen. I saw him make the decision a split second before the Countdown finished. I could see it in his eyes. He plunged straight into the Bloodbath and was taken out with a knife before he even knew what hit him. At least it was fast.

Their faces will be in the sky tonight.


	8. Chapter 8

I am home, and though it is a relief, it does not numb the pain of what I have just done. What I have been _forced _to do.

The Games are still raging on. Everywhere else, people are either celebrating or watching in suspense for their Tributes to die.

Here in District Twelve, we have been relieved of the horror of waiting on our Tributes to die. A certain, strange calm has settled over the District. The horror is over, at least for one more year. And yet we still have to watch the Games. And there are still two families mourning their dead children.

Children who were dead before they even started.

Children I sent into the Arena.


	9. Chapter 9

I just got the news that after this year's Victory Tour District Twelve's escort will be retiring. I don't know whether to be glad or apprehensive.

I am glad because the current escort is a miserable old bat who hates Twelve and does not hesitate to make this clear. Maysilee you must remember her. She makes the children miserable. And the only way I can escape her is to drink.

But we won't talk about that.

Maysilee, I'm glad that you weren't there to see her when this year's Tributes died. The only thing she cared about was the fact that she wouldn't get to go to any more of the parties. You know she actually turned to me and thanked me for winning last year's Games because she finally got to see what the end of the Games celebrations were like.

I was sitting there looking at our fallen Tributes on the screen, and she was lamenting missed parties. I'll be glad to be rid of her.

But I can't expect the new one to be any better. Why would she be? She will simply be a younger version of the same person. Another clone.


End file.
